NEST BUILDING. 
811 
skill. In the first these materials are interspersed with 
birch-bark, pieces of paper, threads and feathers; in the 
latter, with cotton-wool and tow, &c.; and both are 
always lined with the softest grass. The Golden Oriole 
and Goldcrest suspend their nests from the branches of 
trees; while the Sun- and Humming-birds felt the walls 
of their tiny dwellings together most beautifully, and 
thus lead us on to the masters in nest-building art. Of 
these I will first take the Fantail Warbler (Gisticola 
schamicula ) of Southern Europe: its nest is a perfect 
gem of a structure, combining, as it does, divers accom¬ 
plishments. It is placed in the centre of a tuft of 
sedge or reed-grass, and the exterior skeleton is composed 
of the leaves of the same; these leaves are stitched 
together at their edges with threads, which the little 
creature makes out of vegetable-down or spiders’-webs. 
The threads alluded to, vary it is true in length and 
strength, and are in some places not well twisted 
together, yet they always suffice for the purpose they are 
intended. The leaves thus sewn together form a kind of 
basket doubled, with a felting of rush-down and cobwebs, 
and lined at the bottom with soft leaves; it is also 
furnished at the side towards the top with an entrance- 
hole. The nests of the celebrated Tailor-birds ( Orthotomus ) 
are in nowise more cleverly constructed than the 
above. Bernstein gives us the following description of 
a species of Tailor-bird inhabiting Java:—“When the 
bird has found a leaf to its liking it seeks a thread of 
cotton, covers the same with saliva, and then, boring a 
hole through the edge of the leaf with its beak, draws the 
thread partially through, and leaves it hanging. Thanks 
to the cohesive properties of the mucus the thread sticks 
fast; a second is fastened in a similar manner ; and thus 
